The Simple Life

The small room of the foreign exchange bureau was air-conditioned, but I could feel my skin getting hot. My friend Zoum and I had come into this small money changer in Bujumbura to change $20 into Burundian francs. It was my last $20, and I wanted to buy some coffee with it before leaving Burundi for a trip back to Burkina. One would think this was a straight-forward process—but not today.

Unfortunately for me, someone at some point had accidentally made a small highlighter mark on one of the corners.

The clerk had taken my bill, looked at it, then handed it back to me, saying it was ‘too dirty’ for the transaction.

“What are you talking about? I just got this bill from a bank in the U.S. a couple months ago. It’s real, valid. I promise,” I said.

“No, we can’t take it,” came the response. The clerk couldn’t have been less interested.

I continued to plead my case, but quickly found out that I was just simply not going to be able to change my money today. Their buyers, other Burundians, apparently only like crisp bills.

It was Sunday, and in this predominantly Christian society, I was lucky to have found this for-ex bureau open. All others were closed.

Zoum said, “Come on, let’s go.” So I forced my stubborn self to leave, having failed at this simple task. It was really quite frustrating. I began to vent to Zoum—here in this country, they use my American money for international transactions all the time because their currency is quite weak. Plus, their money is so old and dirty that it is hard to read the values on it, not an issue for me, but seems quite hypocritical. And they are going to refuse my $20 bill because of a little highlight mark?!? I couldn’t believe it.

Zoum, after patiently listening to my ranting, smiled and replied with his usual calm wisdom, “La vie est simple. C’est les gens qui sont complique. ”—Life is simple. It’s people that are complicated.

His response surprised me, and left me speechless as I took it in. How true were the words that he said. I began thinking how the woman had refused my money because people try to sometimes use counterfeit money, and that’s because they want a quick way to get money (complicated), because they for some reason feel that will make their lives better because we place importance on material things (complicated), and on and on and on. And truthfully, my life really wouldn’t end if I didn’t buy some coffee (even though Burundian coffee is quite extraordinaire if I do say so myself.)

So Zoum and I packed up our stuff, loaded the plane, and started our long 2-day journey to Burkina, with stops in Nairobi, Kenya; Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia; and Lome, Togo. Our flight from Bujumbura to Nairobi was nearly empty. We took off, and as it was the middle of the day, we were treated to superb views of the land below—something I didn’t get to see when I’d first arrived as it was dark. Small brown rivers and creeks raced through the green velvety mountains, carving through the land to feed the huge blue lake.

After a few minutes, the beverage cart came around and gave us drinks. As we were drinking our tomato juice, Zoum leaned over and whispered to me, “Give me your cup after you’re done, I want to keep it.”

With wide, almost mocking eyes, I laughed and looked at him and said, “We can’t do that, they’ll get mad.”

“Oh come on, they’re just going to throw them away anyway, and they’re durable plastic. Plastic like this is expensive in Burkina,” he said.

I laughed at him—obviously I was caring too much about what other people would think about me. But leave it to him to be resourceful with just about anything. He took the cups and stuffed them into the magazine rack, he covered them with a napkin—with the look of a mischievous child on his face. As he did this, I realized I had made him embarrassed about something simple. I was in fact, now the one ‘complicating’ the simple life that we had discussed earlier.

Bouncing back and forth between American culture and the simpler cultures I have been blessed to live in throughout the past few years has definitely been a challenge. Values are so different. In America, we as a society place a lot of value on things we buy. Our status in society is built upon what we own, regardless of how happy we are inside. We work so many hours, bypassing time with family and friends, to make enough money to have a certain brand of car or live in a certain size house. In Burkina, Uganda, Burundi, and countless other places, value is based on how you treat people. If you are good to people, you are accepted. If not, you are rejected. And you take care of whatever you have as best as you can. People still place values in things, but it doesn’t affect the way they treat each other. Sadly, in America as a whole, it has.

People often ask me if I get culture shock when I arrive in a new place. Truth is, I usually just get culture shock when I arrive back in America after being away.

We finally arrived in Burkina, and took a cab to the Hotel Delwende, our usual stop when we’re in Ouagadougou (the capital). We didn’t have a reservation, so we were hoping they had a room. We showed up at the front desk, and Jean Claude, the clerk, looked up and, with a surprised smile, said, “Feeesh, bon arrive!” Not only did he remember me, he remembered my name, despite it being over six months since either Zoum or I had been there. We exchanged greetings, and then I noticed the shirt he was wearing.

Two years ago, my younger brother Keenan came over to Burkina with our cousin Jason. Before the trip, someone (who will remain nameless, Nathan) had given Keenan a bright orange leaf-print button-up shirt. He’d worn it some during his three-week visit, but wasn’t exactly too keen on it. Despite it really fit in with the bright clothing the Burkinabe wear, he couldn’t see it fitting in too well in America. On their last day in Burkina, we’d stayed at this same hotel, and he decided to give this shirt to the hotel clerk who was there—Jean Claude. (Sorry Keenan, if you hadn’t yet told this nameless person that you had re-gifted his gift.)

Now, over 2 years later, Jean Claude still had that same shirt! The hot Burkina sun had bleached out a lot of the color, but it was clean and pressed, and looked very neat. The shirt would have been perceived as ‘out-of-style’ or ugly in America. (Truth is, I don’t have a clue where Keenan’s gift-giver even found such a shirt!) But Jean-Claude was simply honored. Someone thought enough of him to give him a shirt. No one would ever think it was ugly, as long as it was clean and neat. Life is simple, if we let it be.

When Zoum spoke those words to me in Burundi, he simply stated things as he saw them, trying to calm me down from my tantrum. But what he said seems to be such a truth for all of us, in any culture. We have so many problems because we try to complicate things. We often stress over things that we couldn’t possibly live without, even though we truly could. People in many places live without those things, and they are fine. We should be more thankful for what we have. If we have a safe place to sleep at night, our bellies are full of food and drink, and we have loving people around us, can we really complain about anything else? There’s obviously nothing wrong with having nice things, but we complicate things when we turn wants into needs.

I try to remember Zoum’s words anytime I’m in a frustrating situation. And, more importantly, I try to make sure that I am not the one doing the complicating.